In China, lots of excellent students who are good at maths take an active part in various maths contests and the best six senior high school students will be selected to form the IMO National Team to compete in the International Mathematical Olympiad. In the past ten years China's IMO Team has achieved outstanding results — they have won the first place almost every year.The author is one of the senior coaches of China's IMO National Team, whose students have won many gold medals many times in IMO.This book is part of the Mathematical Olympiad Series which discusses several aspects related to maths contests, such as algebra, number theory, combinatorics, graph theory and geometry. This book will, in an interesting problem-solving way, explain what probability theory is: its concepts, methods and meanings; particularly, two important concepts — probability and mathematical expectation (briefly expectation) — are emphasized. It consists of 65 problems, appended by 107 exercises and their answers.

In China, lots of excellent students who are good at maths take an active part in various maths contests and the best six senior high school students will be selected to form the IMO National Team to compete in the International Mathematical Olympiad. In the past ten years China's IMO Team has achieved outstanding results -- they have won the first place almost every year. The author is one of the senior coaches of China's IMO National Team, whose students have won many gold medals many times in IMO. This book is part of the Mathematical Olympiad Series which discusses several aspects related to maths contests, such as algebra, number theory, combinatorics, graph theory and geometry. This book will, in an interesting problem-solving way, explain what probability theory is: its concepts, methods and meanings; particularly, two important concepts -- probability and mathematical expectation (briefly expectation) -- are emphasized. It consists of 65 problems, appended by 107 exercises and their answers.

Annotation. This text provides basic knowledge on how to solve combinatorial problems in mathematical competitions, and also introduces important solutions to combinatorial problems and some typical problems with often-used solutions.

Number theory is an important research field of mathematics. In mathematical competitions, problems of elementary number theory occur frequently. These problems use little knowledge and have many variations. They are flexible and diverse. In this book, the author introduces some basic concepts and methods in elementary number theory via problems in mathematical competitions. Readers are encouraged to try to solve the problems by themselves before they read the given solutions of examples. Only in this way can they truly appreciate the tricks of problem-solving.

See also A SECOND STEP TO MATHEMATICAL OLYMPIAD PROBLEMS The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is an annual international mathematics competition held for pre-collegiate students. It is also the oldest of the international science olympiads, and competition for places is particularly fierce. This book is an amalgamation of the first 8 of 15 booklets originally produced to guide students intending to contend for placement on their country's IMO team. The material contained in this book provides an introduction to the main mathematical topics covered in the IMO, which are: Combinatorics, Geometry and Number Theory. In addition, there is a special emphasis on how to approach unseen questions in Mathematics, and model the writing of proofs. Full answers are given to all questions. Though A First Step to Mathematical Olympiad Problems is written from the perspective of a mathematician, it is written in a way that makes it easily comprehensible to adolescents. This book is also a must-read for coaches and instructors of mathematical competitions.

In China, lots of excellent maths students takes an active part in various maths contests and the best six senior high school students will be selected to form the IMO National Team to compete in the International Mathematical Olympiad. In the past ten years, China's IMO Team has achieved outstanding results — they have won the first place almost every year.The author is one of the senior coaches of China's IMO National Team, he is the headmaster of Shanghai senior high school which is one of the best high schools of China. In the past decade, the students of this school have won the IMO gold medals almost every year.The author attempts to use some common characteristics of sequence and mathematical induction to fundamentally connect Math Olympiad problems to particular branches of mathematics. In doing so, the author hopes to reveal the beauty and joy involved with math exploration and at the same time, attempts to arouse readers' interest of learning math and invigorate their courage to challenge themselves with difficult problems.

Praise for the Third Edition “Researchers of any kind of extremal combinatorics or theoretical computer science will welcome the new edition of this book.” - MAA Reviews Maintaining a standard of excellence that establishes The Probabilistic Method as the leading reference on probabilistic methods in combinatorics, the Fourth Edition continues to feature a clear writing style, illustrative examples, and illuminating exercises. The new edition includes numerous updates to reflect the most recent developments and advances in discrete mathematics and the connections to other areas in mathematics, theoretical computer science, and statistical physics. Emphasizing the methodology and techniques that enable problem-solving, The Probabilistic Method, Fourth Edition begins with a description of tools applied to probabilistic arguments, including basic techniques that use expectation and variance as well as the more advanced applications of martingales and correlation inequalities. The authors explore where probabilistic techniques have been applied successfully and also examine topical coverage such as discrepancy and random graphs, circuit complexity, computational geometry, and derandomization of randomized algorithms. Written by two well-known authorities in the field, the Fourth Edition features: Additional exercises throughout with hints and solutions to select problems in an appendix to help readers obtain a deeper understanding of the best methods and techniques New coverage on topics such as the Local Lemma, Six Standard Deviations result in Discrepancy Theory, Property B, and graph limits Updated sections to reflect major developments on the newest topics, discussions of the hypergraph container method, and many new references and improved results The Probabilistic Method, Fourth Edition is an ideal textbook for upper-undergraduate and graduate-level students majoring in mathematics, computer science, operations research, and statistics. The Fourth Edition is also an excellent reference for researchers and combinatorists who use probabilistic methods, discrete mathematics, and number theory. Noga Alon, PhD, is Baumritter Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Tel Aviv University. He is a member of the Israel National Academy of Sciences and Academia Europaea. A coeditor of the journal Random Structures and Algorithms, Dr. Alon is the recipient of the Polya Prize, The Gödel Prize, The Israel Prize, and the EMET Prize. Joel H. Spencer, PhD, is Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Courant Institute of New York University. He is the cofounder and coeditor of the journal Random Structures and Algorithms and is a Sloane Foundation Fellow. Dr. Spencer has written more than 200 published articles and is the coauthor of Ramsey Theory, Second Edition, also published by Wiley.